France: Demanding Justice for Anti-Semitic Attacks, Taking a Stand at UNESCO

January 22, 2018

In the last few weeks in France the Simon Wiesenthal Center has become alarmed over disturbing incidents in the Jewish community:

• The slashing of a 15-year old girl’s face who was wearing a Jewish school uniform as she was leaving her high school
• A Jewish man was violently beaten with baseball bats and hospitalized following a middle of the night home invasion by three masked men
• An arson attack on two kosher grocery stores less than a week after they were desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti
• The release of the suspect in Paris' Copernic synagogue bombing that left four dead and 41 wounded

These latest incidents led the SWC to immediately:

• Meet with French Ministry of Interior and Justice officials to demand that adequate sentences be imposed by French judges for perpetrators of violent attacks on Jews.

• Highlight the fact that France’s judicial system currently appears to be failing to deter such crimes.

• Demand an explanation for the sudden, unannounced release to Canada of Hassan Diab, the accused suspect in the 1980 High Holy Day Copernic Synagogue attack and urge that the trial proceeds with or without him.